Advice

Our latest version of the Multiplatform Publishing Strategy handbook delivers a proven, integrated set of business processes, principles and tools for the digital publisher, whether you’re B2B, consumer, local, regional or national; multi-title or single. Continue

The newsletter subscription website model is simple, clean and editorially-focused

Newsletter publishers, particularly those on the B-to-B side but also those with consumer titles in the finance and health fields, were among the first to embrace subscription websites. Perhaps that’s because the newsletter subscription website archetype is the easiest type of subscription website to build. The file size of newsletters is generally manageable, whether the newsletter is 8, 12, 16, 32, or more pages, since it is mostly text and often limited to black-and-white or two-color. Continue

A recent Digiday story on publishers’ new approach to site redesign reveals that in place of the customary massive overhauls every few years, magazines are now outfitting their portals with infrastructure enabling periodic tweaks and tune-ups rather than part-and-parcel transformations. The realization that redesigns are capable of doing more harm than good has fueled this change in thinking. Continue

We’ve covered a lot of ground during the past couple of weeks as we roll out stats from our 2015 Digital Magazine Market Study. But have we covered too much with one stat post per day? Not according to consumers of digital magazines. Far from it. Continue

Creating a robust editorial schedule for your blog isn’t only about making sure that your categories are getting published in regularly. It’s also not about fulfilling the need of all the different types of readers that come to your site. And it’s not even just about writing quality content.

Your editorial schedule is where you have the opportunity to organize all of the content you will produce for the next pre-determined amount of time. It could be a week, but more likely it’s about a month, or a quarter. Continue

That’s the question we asked 3,642 U.S adults with Internet access earlier this year, looking to learn more about consumption of digital magazines – and, more to the point, the spending habits and preferences of readers – in the time since our inaugural study (in which we polled 1,136 people). Continue

Have you ever spent time poking around on your iPad, just to see how customers feel about the digital magazines they buy and subscribe to? We make this a habit of ours, picking out some of the common themes (typically, bad usability and type size complaints) and also purchasing habits. Continue

Given that we’ve already revised our thinking since I started regularly reviewing digital magazines back in March, I concede that anything we name as a Best Practice in digital magazines is purely temporary.

But I’m going to bravely list our current Best Practices for the mobile magazine that I know you’re all going to publish, if you’re haven’t already. Tomorrow someone might invent something new that blows away a previous Best Practice, so this is obviously an evolving list. Continue

Tablet, print, or web? The data shows that magazine consumers are split on their magazine format preference. The web edition showed a tiny edge over print and tablet editions, but at this stage of the game, digital magazine consumers seem relatively equal on their preference for tablet editions versus print editions versus web editions. Continue

Back when many current print journalists were beginning their careers, their job descriptions looked very different than they do now.

Yes, the basic idea of being a journalist is still the same—finding, researching, investigating, and writing pieces that share important news and tell a story. However, how that is accomplished and what happens after an article is written are where some of the biggest changes have taken place. In the past, once a journalist finished his or her work, they’d submit to their editor, clock out at 5 p.m., and head home for dinner. The editor would publish the article on one platform, like a newspaper or a magazine, and the journalist was free to move on and begin writing another piece. Continue

Publishers sometimes forget that they, themselves, are retailers; publishers sell subscriptions, memberships, books, ancillary products, events, etc. It’s smart for a publisher to think like a retailer: Get people into your store, where they can become your customers. And when they become your customers, get them to come back for more. The “store,” of course, is your website, your portal.Continue